Before robotically assisted surgery can become widely available, a vision system that is capable of real-time tracking of moving tissue such as deformable lumens is required. The main limitation of the known techniques is that the type of deformation function needs to be physically modeled accurately in order for the tracking to work. This is because the previous deformable tracking techniques used to track the surface employs these physical models whose parameters are identified using optimization techniques based on observations of the flexible surface. However many times these physical models are not validated with real tissues (in medical applications). This method also fails when there is occlusion by other objects in the scene and in cases where the underlying surface folds, as is the case with irregularly shaped tissue which may fold as it is being manipulated.
It would be very advantageous to provide a real-time tracking method able to track moving surfaces.